Should Shakespeare Be In The 9th Grade Curriculum Essay

Should Shakespeare Be In the 9th Grade Curriculum?

In ninth grade, we are required learn about Shakespeare and read one of his plays, Romeo and Juliet. Some people say that ninth graders should be required to learn about Shakespeare but others disagree and say that learning Shakespeare is irrelevant and that there’s more important things to learn about other than a book about two teens that fell in love at first sight. Shakespeare should not be in the ninth grade curriculum because there are more important things and events to learn about other than Shakespeare, such as the Holocaust but there are also reasons why Shakespeare should be in the ninth grade curriculum.

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare is a coming-of-age story about two teens from rival families that meet at a feast that the Capulets’ (Juliet’s family) are hosting. When they first meet, it’s like

love at first sight and they think that everything will be perfect until Juliet that Romeo is a Montague and Romeo finds out that Juliet is a Capulet. They ignore the fact that they’re from rival families and that Juliet’s mom has planned for her to marry Paris, a kinsman of the Prince, and they start seeing each other behind their parents’ back. They eventually have a wedding behind their parents backs. One day when Juliet returns home, she finds out that the wedding with Paris has been scheduled to the next day so she drinks a potion that will put her to sleep for a while. Everyone thinks she’s dead so they put her in a tomb but Romeo doesn’t know she’s not actually dead so he buys poison to drink to kill himself. Romeo goes to the churchyard and goes next to Juliet’s tomb and drinks the poison and dies almost immediately. Juliet wakes up a couple minutes later and sees Romeo dead next to her tomb. Juliet then grabs Romeo’s knife and kill herself. In the end, both of them die for no reason.

In the ninth grade, Shakespeare shouldn’t be taught in ninth grader for multiple reasons. Most ninth graders wouldn’t understand the language, it contains violence, it encourages teens to rebel, and it’s just boring.

Most ninth graders won’t understand the way Shakespeare speaks and writes his plays so there is no point in having ninth graders read Romeo and Juliet if they don’t even understand. The way we speak now is so much different from the language from the 1590s that students would only be able to understand a tiny little bit of what Shakespeare is saying. It would seem to the majority of ninth graders that it’s almost a different language. If ninth graders were to study Shakespeare, barely any students would understand what was happening and it would be time wasted.

Romeo and Juliet also contains violence such as fighting scenes and death. For example, in Act 3, Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet, Tybalt and Mercutio have a sword fight and Tybalt stabs Mercutio. A few minutes later, Mercutio dies and Romeo runs back to Tybalt and has a sword fight with him and Romeo ends up killing Tybalt. Another example is in Act 5, Scene 3 where Romeo is about to drink the poison to kill himself and he kills Paris because Paris won’t leave from the churchyard. This can show young, impressionable teens that doing these things would be ok to do. At the end of the book, Romeo and Juliet both kill themselves.

Within the story, Romeo and Juliet rebel against their parents anytime they want to see each other, which is a lot. Whenever Romeo and Juliet want to see each other, they have to go behind their parents backs. As if it’s not bad enough that they’re sneaking around, they are only teens. If ninth graders saw this, they would think it’s ok to sneak out like that. Ninth graders would start sneaking out without their parents’ knowing. This could lead to worse things later on in life.

Although many say that learning Shakespeare is good, there are more important events to learn about other than a teen love story. Instead of Shakespeare, ninth graders should learn about more important things like the Holocaust, wars, bombings, and more about 9/11 other than knowing that a plane hit one tower and then another plane hit another tower. For example, some ninth graders probably won’t even know that a plane crashed into the Pentagon. They could also learn about ways to help the Earth and giving back to the community. Even though there is a history class, not everything can be taught in one year and taking a history class in ninth grade is not required in California. Even if it were required, history class would focus more on WWI and events that happened earlier in U.S. history.

To most kids, learning about Shakespeare wouldn’t be one of their favorite things to do because of the language that’s hard to understand for ninth graders and the story would only appeal to some students. So to the majority of students, it’s just a waste of time. Most kids would rather learn and study something more interesting than two teenagers rebelling against their parents because their in love. Even if some kids did enjoy it, both Romeo and Juliet end up killing themselves in the end so it’s kind of pointless, it’s a big let down/disappointment and it’s a waste of time anyway because most people know that they ending killing themselves.

The whole story of Romeo and Juliet is about love. By reading this, ninth graders would also think that love is so important and that it’s a main thing to focus on in life. If teens reading the book believed that love is the most important thing ever, it could cause their grades to go down. They would start focusing on finding love and not pay attention to anything in school and they could fail classes.

Even though there are reasons why ninth graders shouldn’t learn about Shakespeare, there are also reasons why ninth graders should study Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare should be in the ninth grade curriculum because Romeo and Juliet can teach teens that ot listening to your parents can end in something bad, it can improve your writing and speaking abilities, and he can inspire young teens.

In the play, Romeo and Juliet sneak out a lot to see each other. They do this because they are from rival families and their don’t want them to interact with each other at all. By sneaking around, it created more problems and Juliet drank a potion that would put her to sleep for a while and as a result, they both ended up killing themselves. They were both not listening to their parents and by doing that, it ended badly for both of them and their families.

Shakespeare’s language is so different from the slang teens use today so by reading his plays, it can improve teens’ speaking abilities. If teens were to read Shakespeare’s plays, it could expand their vocabulary and they would use more academic

language.

If teens would read Romeo and Juliet, they could get inspired by his work and decide to make work of their own. Later on in life, they would realize that studying Shakespeare was a good and important thing to do and realize that Shakespeare should be on the curriculum for ninth grade.

There are many different reasons as to whether or not Shakespeare should be in the ninth grade curriculum. Although many people say that ninth graders should learn about Romeo and Juliet, learning about Shakespeare is not relevant and learning and studying Romeo and Juliet should not be in the ninth grade curriculum because most ninth graders wouldn’t understand the language, it contains violence, it encourages teens to sneak around, and it’s boring. On the other hand, there are reasons why ninth graders should study Shakespeare such as teaching lessons, enhancing teens’ writing and speaking abilities, and inspiring teens to write their own poetry, books, or plays.